Closed captioning (CC) integrated circuits or chips exist in many television sets. This chip allows for receipt and decoding of a text-based signal transmitted in association with the transmission of a television signal representing a movie or other television program. The text is intended to be a verbatim representation of the audio content of the program, e.g., what a person in the program is currently saying. One reason such text is used is so that individuals with a hearing impairment have a visual means of receiving the audio content of the televised program.
However, there are many situations when there is no closed captioning service provided on a television. For instance, there may be public and/or private areas where the chip may not be activated, for example, in a fitness club that has television sets for their customers, or a host's house that has not activated a chip although guests may be present that require it. A guest may also not feel comfortable asking a host to activate the closed captioning chip. For these reasons, a televised program that may otherwise have closed captioning service associated therewith, may still not be presented with closed captions.
There are also many other devices for presenting video/audio content that have no means to display closed captions. Computer monitors, for instance, may play a movie or a segment from a news brief (e.g., either from a downloaded feed or from a compact disc or digital video disc), but will often not have the ability to display closed captions. A movie theater display system is another example of one that typically has no ability to display closed captions.
It is to be appreciated that closed captioning services are necessary not only for the hearing impaired population but for foreigners and people who speak a different native tongue. People who speak another language may require closed captions because it will allow a movie, show, or news brief to be translated into their native tongue.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,151 issued Jul. 16, 1996 to Orr et al. and entitled “Closed Caption Support with Timewarp,” the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a method of providing closed captioned data to a television viewer which includes: detecting closed captioned data signals transmitted in conjunction with a television signal; decoding the data signals to caption display signals; and displaying the caption display signals on an auxiliary screen separate from a screen displaying the television signals. As stated therein, the Orr et al. method is an attempt to avoid the problem associated with closed caption text obstructing a portion of the video displayed on a television screen. However, while Orr et al. discloses use of an auxiliary screen, the computer which drives the auxiliary screen is tasked with extracting the closed caption portion from the television signal, processing the video signal portion, and sending the processed video signal to the television display. The auxiliary screen is placed near the television display. However, one problem with this arrangement is that the closed caption extractor does not operate independently from, or autonomously with respect to, the television. Another problem is that the auxiliary display is not portable.
Accordingly, there is a need for methods and apparatus which are capable of portably and universally receiving closed captioning services regardless of whether a display device presenting a particular program is capable of, or activated to, display closed captions.